Sexy for a day

Last week I registered with the calling agency "Extras Management". I pay them $70 a month and they book me on shows. I no longer have to call hotlines or wait on hold to book myself, which frees up my cell phone minutes. One perk is that they usually book you for more exciting parts other than pedestrians, restaurant patrons or students. So the other day I was booked on CSI-NY as a fireman. I was excited because I would be shooting at the Paramount Studios lot on their NY street set. The set is basically about four blocks in the middle of sound stages that they have dressed up to look like NY's Chinatown.

I report in and they send me to wardrobe. These very nice ladies gave me a full fire fighters outfit. Boots, fire pants with suspenders, a FDNY t-shirt and a big fire retardant jacket. They ask me to put it on and come back for approval. The changing area is about a 5-7 minute walk in between other sound stages. I change and walk back to wardrobe. As I was walking back I passed several other productions outside of sound stages. I began to notice that a couple of women were checking me out. Not blatantly, like men, but subtlely. I thought it was my imagination at first, but it happened again. Then I thought it was because with the outfit on, I looked out of place. But since this was a movie studio and other people were walking around in costumes, I knew it must be something else. Then it hit me. Women love a man in uniform! Normally on my sexiness scale of 1-10, I am usually a pretty strong 6. I dip occasionally to a 4, but never below that. With the uniform, I think I was around an 8. I don't think I have ever been above that, but I decided to go for broke. That's why I moved out here right? I started to strut a little bit and puff out my chest. I passed a group of people with two women in it. They were looking at me, of course, so I shot them my 1000 watt smile and said "hi". They smile back and one looked down and shyly said "hello".

Oh baby, I just hit a 9! Brimming with confidence, I walked up to the wardrobe trailer, stood tall, held my hands out to the side and said "How do I look"? The first women looked at me and with lust in her eyes said "Oh, yeah you do look like a fireman". The second looked up and was immediately frozen, staring at me. "Yeah, you look good", was all that she could muster.

I just nailed the dismount and all of the judges gave me a 10 on the sexiness scale. I could have taken both of those women into the back of the trailer and made their dreams come true, but I had bigger fish to fry.

I was seriously strutting my stuff on my way back to the set. I was visualizing the scene in Saturday Night Fever where John Travolta is walking down the street in the beginning of the movie and the Bee Gee's "Staying Alive" is playing. I was walkin tall and livin large, and if it was possible to amend the scale, I was nearing an 11. I get back to the holding area and not being needed right away and just from the sheer energy I expended maintaining the high level of sexiness, I promptly fell asleep in my chair. I woke up in a panic that I had lost some of the sexiness, but after a quick self-sexiness check, I was still a 10.

I went over to the prop department to get my equipment. They gave me a Helmut, an axe that strapped on to my waist, a crowbar and an oxygen tank with a mask. Now I was in a different territory, the action scale.

Along side of the sexiness scale are the action scale and the charisma scale. Normally I rate pretty low on the action scale, around a 1. I am up around a 5 on the charisma scale all of the time, but I can get to a 10 on the charisma scale pretty quickly. When I am acting I use these scales to let me know how I am doing in a scene. Sexiness/action/charisma are all very important in my business and I need to keep track of all three. I was already at a 10 on the sexiness scale and with all of my equipment I was at a strong 9 on the action scale, and the charisma scale was holding steady at a 5. So I was hitting 24 on my scales and was ready to work.

The first part of the scene takes place after a fire at a bank in Chinatown. Myself and another extra were to walk out of the bank, take off all of our gear and then roll up a hose. First take, nailed it. 10 sexiness, 9 action, 5 charisma. Then the sun started to come out and it got hot. Very, very hot. I began to sweat, a lot. I could feel the scale beginning to become unstable. With all of the sweat the sexiness scale began to fall. 9 takes later and I was drenched. I had sweated through 2 t-shirts, and my hair was completely wet from the Helmut. Not to mention that my back was hurting from constantly putting on and taking of that damn oxygen tank. We finished the scene and I was at a 4 on the sexiness scale and since I was very tired my action scale had dropped also. I considered doing some push-ups to get both scales to go up, but I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to do any, and that the scales would be damaged beyond repair. So instead I sat on the curb and drank Gatorade and water until I knew I wasn't going to throw up.

We did some more scenes and when we ended I had managed to to keep at a 2 on the sexiness scale and a 2 on the action scale. Charisma was about a 4 because I had not said anything witty all day. I went back to props and was standing in line to turn in my gear. There was one guy ahead of me. As he was turning in his props, the prop master said "You guys look like you could really handle a fire". I could feel the action scale begin to rise. Just then the guy ahead of me knocked me on my head with the giant hooked pole he had, on accident. Luckily I was wearing my Helmut or, and I am not kidding, I would have been seriously hurt. The prop guy laughed and said "Maybe not". I felt the bottom drop out of the sexiness scale as it hit 0. I went back to the wardrobe ladies ready for a sexiness bump up. I gave them my clothes and said "They're pretty wet", from all of my sweat. The lady held them like a dirty diaper and said "We'll send them for cleaning". The sexiness scale shuddered and gave a groan as it also hit 0. I tried to think of something witty to say, but just stood there silently. So, the charisma scale dropped to an all time low of 2.

So that's how the day ended. With a pitiful 2 on the charisma scale the only thing left. Oh, and a sore back. Then I got home at 8pm and found out I had to get up for the next day at 3:30 am to make my call time. I fell asleep and dreamed of my former sexiness.

* It should be noted that the sexiness/action/charisma scale was invented for me by my friend Brendan on the set of Tripod Film's "Drawing Blood"

Extra Moron's

I do not consider myself an extremely intelligent person. I think I am smart, but I'll bet that there are a lot of people smarter than me in this city, but most of them do NOT do extra work. I run into people every day that I would never have a conversation with unless we were stuck next to each other for hours at a time. I seem to be a magnet for strange people who just like to talk to other humans. Most of the time, when I go to set, I don't know anyone and I sit by myself. A lot of those times I overhear conversations that people are having with each other and want to shoot myself while I am listening to them. Here are a selection of the conversations I have overheard.

Conversation #1

Two men are discussing the stock market. One man has made a lot of money in the stock market day trading and is therefore pro-stock market. One man has lost money in the stock market so he is anti-stockmarket. There is a lone strange female who is sitting near them listening to their conversation. When they are done the women starts to speak to the anti-stockmarket man.

Man:.....I just don't trust those guys running it. They are only out for themselves. They lie and cheat and that's why I stay away from it (the stockmarket)

Woman: The STARK market?

Man: No, the STOCK market.

Woman: What's the STARK market?

Man: STOCK, STOCK market.

Woman: Oh, STOCK market. Why don't you like it?

Man: The brokers who invest for you are a bunch of crooks. You can't trust them, they are only looking out for themselves.

Woman: Oh. (VERY LONG PAUSE) So, were you a stockbroker for a long time?

Man: No, I wasn't a stockbroker.

Woman: Right. So why didn't you like it?

Man: No, I wasn't a broker. I don't like them.

Woman: So you didn't like being a broker and that's why you don't like the stock market.

At this point I was ready to kill someone, so I left and went out into the hallway to get away from it. I went back in later and they had thankfully ended the great financial debate. But they weren't done.

Woman: It looks like you got some sun?

Man: Today?

Woman: You're sunburned.

Man: From today?

Woman: Was today the day you got sun?

Man: I don't know.

Woman: Oh. (VERY LONG PAUSE AGAIN) It was sunny today.

Cue another walk into the hallway.

Conversation #2

I was working on Cold Case and we were in a hotel ballroom waiting to go to work. There was a table of primarily African Americans next to the table I was sitting at. I was listening to their conversation because they were discussing racism. Here is where I stopped listening.

Man #1: I mean the fact that today we still have racism is wrong. People work very hard to make things equal and some folks still don't get it.

Man #2: Yeah. Didn't we take care of this in the 30's?

Man #1: You bet your ass we did!

And somewhere in heaven Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weeps.

Conversation #3

I worked on a movie called Sky High for the last three weeks. Most of the people working there were very young, around 19-21. I lot of them were stupid. There was an announcement to tell us the story of the film. Basically it is a high school where every kid has super powers. The high school is up in the sky, hence the name. I was standing near a group of girls who I KNEW heard the announcement, because I was near them when they told all of us. Apparently one of them hadn't heard and asked the others what the movie was about.

Girl #1: So, what is going on at this school?

Girl #2: Apparently we're in space or some shit.

Girl #3: Yeah, we're really high up. Like above the sun or something.

Above the sun indeed. I hope your looks last honey, cause you ain't got nothing else going for you.

I have a million of these. I will add some every now and then when things get boring in my own life.